


SOS: Science of Spinsterhood, Year 1

by labspinster



Series: SOS: Science of Spinsterhood [1]
Category: Original Work, The Mindy Project, The Office (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M, Gen, Mindy/Michael Scott type character, PB&J-type relationship, Science
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2018-05-10 17:54:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5595451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/labspinster/pseuds/labspinster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A little bit of science, a lot bit of chaos. Follow Polly, scientist-in-training and spinster-in-waiting, as she and her friends go through college and life trying to answer the hard questions like what is the meaning of life?, is there life on other planets?, and how many Skittles can you eat before you get Skittle-mouth?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone--Thanks for checking out this story. It's inspired partly by the Office, partly by Mindy Lahiri, and partly by life experiences. I hope you enjoy it! Thanks again!

Chapter 1:

“I turned around for literally one second to go and get the control when the monitor on this one started freaking out. And when I turned back around, the poor little guy, he was taking these huge exaggerated breaths until he just…he just stopped! He's the experimental; I couldn't just let him die! I pulled him out of the sleep chamber and ran with him lying there, limp in my hands… Well, technically palms I guess. Anyhoo I ran with him downstairs into the lab and placed him on my bench. But this is only my first week in this rotation and it was lunch time so no one else was in the lab to help me and now I'm freaking out because of poor little Algernon and—” Polly exclaimed while pointing to an imaginary bench with her fork.

“Wait, you named your mouse after the one who died in ‘Flowers for Algernon?’ Didn't you think that would bring it bad luck?” Max interrupted.

"No, Maxwell, I did not, clearly, otherwise I would have named him ‘Mickey’ or something. I just remembered that the cray cray scientists gave Algernon a bunch of smarts and this little guy was always the fastest at running through those little mazes…”

“Seems like someone else could have used those smarts too…” 

“OMG would you stop interrupting me?!”

Claire stepped into the conversation, “Max let her finish.”

“Thank you! Where was I? Right no one was in lab and I was in the middle of a breakdown and then I remembered that scene in Dr. Doolittle—the first one, obvs. True he did it with rats instead of mice and that one just had gas instead of anesthesia but I mean, the situation was similar enough and, hey, maybe I wasn't thinking straight because I was hyperventilating and there wasn't enough oxygen going to my brain—”

“That happens often, though, it seems…”

“Ex-squeeze you! That's totes rude, dude.” Polly smacked Max before continuing, “So I had no choice but to straight up Dr. Doolittle him. It was gross and I never want to talk about it ever again, btw—”

“But knowing you, you'll share this story with your friends and your neighbors and your neighbors’ friends and your friends’ neighbors and—”

This time Claire jumped up, grabbed some tape, pulled out two strips—one hot pink and the other neon orange, and placed them across Max’s mouth. He was in too much shock to protest at first, but when he reached to pull it off she took a large circular roll of tape and stuck his hands through.

“Nice!” Polly high fived her.

“Mmm mm mm mmm!” Max mumbled into the tape while they studiously ignored him.

“See Max? You're already making me talk about it again because I forgot where I left off! But I'll skip ahead, so after I Dr. Doolittled Algernon for like 5 minutes he finally started moving! And I was so happy, you guys, but then that little rat bit me!” Polly dramatically pulled out her bottom lip to show them the two little red dots there.

“I thought he was a mouse?” Claire said.

But Polly waved off that remark, “Yes, yes…figure of speech. I had to get three shots of the rabies vaccine you guys, three! I don't care if they're pink, they still hurt!”

Meanwhile Max had managed to push off enough of the tape with his tongue so that he could rejoin the conversation, “So if you ended up saving him why did you Snapchat that image of you leaving the health center with a fire truck behind you?”

Polly suddenly looked sheepish. “I may have left out some details… Fine, fine, I'll tell you guys but you can’t tell anyone else or my entire scientific career could be at stake! After Algernon bit me, I really started freaking out, as in legit yelling because, hello!, a mouse we’re testing for Sleeping Sickness just bit me, don't worry though, I hadn't infected him yet, so I'm good too. And finally the people having lunch outside ran back in, but they didn't make it in time to help me, just to watch me humiliate myself. Because I had grabbed Algernon by the tail, with the full intention to put him back in his cage and resume the experiment mind you, but then he swung up and bit my fingers too! And that's when I may have possibly thrown him into the hood, and that may have possibly had enough force to knock over some volatile chemicals into some highly flammable ones, and then they may have possibly caught on fire.” She slowed down.

Max started guffawing while Claire concernedly placed a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Oh my goodness, are you ok??!”

Polly sniffed dramatically before continuing, “Thanks Claire. See I thought I was because even then I risked my life and got Algernon out of there and I closed the hood to contain the fire. But no-ooo, department of public safety said that those chemicals never should have been together in the first place, which was totes not my doing, so the PI got in trouble but then he turned it around on me saying it was my all my fault because I brought the mouse out of the animal house and onto my bench space and then…and then I was asked to leave…”

“They kicked you out of the lab?” Max asked incredulously.

“Well, that and other things…like the building, and possibly that campus. And now I'm ruined you guys! That's why I need your help.”

“So basically, what you're saying is you've been banned from half of Philadelphia?” Max continued.

“OMG, yes, I just said that, do you have short term memory loss or something?”

Claire tried her best not to laugh and was biting her cheeks to prevent her face from betraying her. “So how can we help, Polly?”

“Well, since the summer has already started most labs are already full. And I neeeeeed to do research otherwise med schools will say, ‘This girl did nothing productive for an entire summer, deny!’ And I can't. Let. That. Happen! Please please please can you ask Dr. Wymore if he'll let me join your lab? Please! I'm begging!!”

Max had completely freed himself by this point, “Well that's no guarantee that you'll be productive, regardless…” 

“Claire, put him back in the muzzle!”

“No! Sheesh, calm down Polly. I'll make you a deal. If you don't muzzle me, we’ll put in a good word for you with him.”

“Really? Oh my gosh, thank you so much! Thank you thank you thank you!” Polly bounced up and down.

“Tricky part, though, is if you can put a good word for yourself in between all the other words you say.” He teased.

“How dare you?! I’m adorable, people love me. And I'm triple majoring in Biology, Chemistry, and Spanish, so he knows I can handle anything anyone throws at me.”

“Really? In that case, heads up!” Max tossed the wadded up ball of tape at her as he left.

“Aaah!” Polly yelled as she swatted at it, which was completely unnecessary since Max’s aim was terrible. “You missed!” She shouted after him before turning to Claire.

“How do you deal with him? You're literally stuck in lab for hours! And I can barely tolerate it for more than one meal… Thanks for making me dinner, by the way, pasta was great!”

“Absolutely, my pleasure. And he’s not that bad; he just has an overaggressive brand of humor that he seeks to thrust upon everyone he meets.”

“The thing I want to thrust at him is my fist!”

“Chillax Polly, you don't want to be banned from your own campus, too, do you? And if you really want to join our lab, you know you'll be stuck with us for hours. Besides, he’s your friend, too.”

“No we are not. Ours was merely an acquaintanceship of convenience to get through evolution lab. And clearly, he has not evolved an iota since then!”

“But classes just ended two weeks ago…”

“Ugh, you know what I mean, and stop taking his side!”

All Claire managed to say was, “But I'm n—” when a pillow came flying towards her.

“Hey, what was that for? I told you I'm not taking his side!”

“Oh…awks, but this is a throw pillow, Claire! Ergo, it clearly sent a telepathic signal to make me throw it at my bestie. It wasn't of my own volition!” Polly fake pouted.

“Riiight, just like it’s sending me a signal now!”

The girls devolved into a pillow fight for the next few minutes before the last bell rang, signaling that it was 8 ‘o clock.

“Oh, I’m late! I had to call my mom a half hour ago. Thanks again for the dinner Claire! When should I come by tomorrow?”

“Umm, Dr. Wymore usually comes in around 9 and goes to the gym at 10. So if we tell him about you right when he enters, he should have finished cyberstalking you by 9:30 or so.”

“Cyberstalking? What like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr? Because it took me a lot longer than a half hour just to cyberstalk you.”

“No, I mean GPA, transcripts, and activities. And what do you mean cyberstalk me?”

“As if you don't weed out real friends by fake friending them on Facebook first.”

"I don't, actually…”

“Wait, so you friended me for reals even before knowing about my obsession with…you know what, doesn't matter. Good night!” Polly brushed it off as she headed towards the door.

“Your obsession with what, Polly?”

“Nothing, see you tomorrow morning!” Polly ran out and was already hitting the little camera button next to “Mom” on her phone. 

Barely a ring into the FaceTime her mom picked up and shouted, “Where have you been?”

“Hi to you too mom. Sheesh no need to go all Molly Weasley on me, unless of course you're going to poof any Bellatrix LeStrange that comes at me, in which case, by all means continue.”

“I don't even—what does that—”

“You're kidding right? I distinctly remember even you clapping at that scene. It was epic! How could you forg—”

“No, stop changing the topic! I was just about to track your iPhone but I'd forgotten your password so I was going to text you for it—”

“Couldn't you have just texted me to ask where I was instead?”

There was a brief pause before her mother’s voice crescendoed again, just as Polly was opening the door to her dorm, “I have been worried sick, bordering on a panic attack, because my daughter didn't call me to let me know if she'd made it back from Killadelphia and now you're mocking me! How dare—Oh my God, Polly, what happened to your face?” she stopped mid-rant after seeing Polly’s swollen lip now that she'd turned on the lights in her room.

She continued, “That injury makes you so…unmarriageable.”

Polly opened her mouth in consternation. “Mother! Your one and only daughter is hurt after saving a life, nay, bringing it back from the brink of death, might I add, and you’re saying that it makes me ‘unmarriageable?’ Is that even a real word? You know what, doesn't matter, because as you know I am content to live out my whole life as a spinster, joined forever to my true love of science. Like Rosalind Franklin… I can imagine my death certificate already, ‘research scientist, spinster, daughter of G. M. Patel, astronaut.’” Polly said dramatically as she looked off into the distance, which really was just the ceiling one yard above since she was lying on her bed.

“Your father works in a bank.” 

“I know, but astronaut sounds way cooler, doesn't it?” Polly replied to her mother’s eye roll.

“I wanna be an astronaut!” Her little brother’s voice came from somewhere behind her mother and his face came into view as her mom turned the camera towards the TV.

“Hey there li’l li’l bro!” Polly smiled widely, “Watcha watchin’?”

“It's a DVD that came with the telescope dad got me.”

“Cool, but didn't you want to be an oceanographer last week?”

Her mom cut back to her so quickly Polly could barely register the fear overtaking her six-year-old brother’s face. “So today was the first day of his swimming lessons, and he realized he's terrified of swimming…so it's also the last day of lessons.” She turned the camera back.

“Oh, I see. Sorry Zak! But you know astronauts have to train in water, right?”

“What?!” His eyes popped open as he finally wrenched them away from the screen.

“Polly! Why would you tell him that after what I just told you?! You know it'll freak him—” she was interrupted by the sound of Zak’s crying. “I have to go. Don't be late calling me tomorrow missy! And text me your password anyways, before going to bed. Love you.”

“Yes Mom.” Polly said to no one as her mother had already hung up.

But Claire’s pasta had made her so full and tired that Polly fell asleep even before she could set up her five alarms.

That's why the first thing she heard the next morning instead of the rushing waterfall nature sound (What? It made her want to hurry to the bathroom to relieve her bladder…) was the typewriter tone she had set for her texts. At first, though, the sounds merely blended with her dream where she was Turk in the jungle banging out with the rest of the gorillas and Tantor before Tarzan and Jane crashed their party.

Eyes still closed she shooed someone, “Shush, Clayton can hear you! OMG Tantor, I said—oh!” She yelped as she fell from her bed, which was unusually high because of the bed risers she needed to get all her crates and boxes to fit under. Luckily for her, the floor was carpeted. What was unlucky was the time.

“Blasted!” She unlocked her phone and there were two different message threads. One from Claire, obviously, and another from an unknown number. She clicked on Claire’s first.

“Hey, Dr. Wymore just came in. Max and I are going in!”

Then 5 minutes later, “K, you're good. He said he remembers you from genetics… I think he meant that in a good way. Also after what you said last night I logged on to look at your profile and I think I found what you were talking about—gurrrl, are you cray cray??”

“Hey, it's 9:20 and you haven't responded yet—you are coming right?”

“Seriously where are you?? He's going to the gym in 10 minutes!!!” Was the last one sent 2 minutes ago—at 9:47 A.M.

“Mushrooms!” Polly yelled as she grabbed the first pair of pants and blouse she could see. 

Not having time to brush, neither her teeth nor her hair, she popped a piece of gum in her mouth and pulled her hair into a pony tail, heading out the door at 9:51. Though her dorm was the only non- air conditioned one on the entire campus, she had chosen it for being closest to the train station, which was a moot point since she was banned from that side of Philly anyways. But the other good thing about it was that it was also the closest to the science building, meaning if she ran she could make it to Dr. Wymore’s in 2 minutes and 26 seconds. She had a habit of timing how long it would take her to get from her residence hall to every other building on campus at the start of each year. Her friends thought it was crazy but, hey, it was crazy useful now. Well, sort of. It would still have been better if she'd just woken up on time. She glanced down at her phone and it said 9:53. There were still two message alerts she hadn't read, from the unknown number. Swiping it open the first one read, 

“Are you kidding me Polly? After you begged us to help you out you're late! Claire's freaking out and she was about to leave her incubation just to come and check on you. Obviously I convinced her otherwise because her research is way more important than a lazy friend. Get up and get your butt down here! I am not letting Dr. W see us negatively just because you're late!”

“Also this is Max. Hi.”

“Ha!” Polly laughed humorlessly. As if any other person would speak to her like that. Or text, whatever.

She wrenched the door open and ran inside the hall, stopping in front of the glass door leading to the suite that housed the offices of all the biology professors. She took a deep breath and steadied herself before gently, well sort of for someone unaccustomed to jogging who had just run for 2 minutes, pulling open the glass door too. 

Dr. Wymore’s office was directly in the middle, which she remembered from her genetics days. Claire had said he mentioned remembering her too—she wondered what exactly that was.

“Ah, good morning Ms. Patel. Fashionably late, as always.”

Polly’s face flushed with chagrin; that wasn't exactly the kind of memory she had been hoping to elicit. She would have melted into a puddle right then had she not snuck a glance and seen that he was smiling good-naturedly, not harshly.

Quickly recovering Polly did what Polly does best.

“Good morning! Sorry! Yes you see… I know you work with yeast and I was just… I was just so busy working on…a poem to express how much I love yeast too. Here it goes. Yeast, you're a single celled beast... You dominate from west to east. You help make bread rise in our feast. Alphabetically you may be last but certainly not least. Word.” She added for good measure.

Dr. Wymore sat there in stunned silence, mouth slightly open. Finally he said, “No offense but I don't think a rap career is in your future. And as far as model organisms go, zebrafish would be last alphabetically, not yeast.”

Polly looked down again in embarrassment, only looking up when Dr. Wymore continued, “Your previous track record, however, indicates a promising future in the sciences. Usually I wouldn't take on new students until the next semester, but your timing is impeccable. My postdoc is moving on to be a post postdoc, if you will, and one of my masters students will be defending this fall and she'll be promoted to lab manager. Your friends, also, spoke very highly of you, and I went back and checked you genetics grades—you were the top scorer that semester. So long story short, it would be my pleasure to have you in my lab.”

Polly released a breath she didn't realize she was holding. Really, was it this easy? 

“Just one question, though; you went to a very prestigious internship—what made you leave so suddenly?”

Polly cursed herself for even having the last thought. See, she'd gone and jinxed herself when everything was going fine. She really should put a muzzle on her brain somehow. She wondered how much she could and should reveal.

“Umm, well about that, I was working with mice, which I've never done before and—“

"Oh I get it, got squeamish, did you?”

“Yes! Exactly! I just couldn't bear the idea of hurting them—such innocent little cuties.” This wasn't completely true, of course. Polly had no qualms before about sticking the mice with a protist infecting their brains. But it was true that she wasn't looking forward to the “sacrificing.”

"Great, let me give you a quick tour of the lab and you can start tomorrow morning at 9. Does that work for you?”

“Tomorrow?! Oh my gosh, yes thank you so much! Thank you thank you thank you!”

He smiled and nodded in acknowledgement and got up to lead the way to the lab. “Just one thing though, less rhyming and more being on time-ing. Ok?”

She tamped down the urge to say “okie dokie artichokie,” and simply said “Ok!” After all, it's not rhyming when you use the same word twice, right?


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2:

Polly was impatiently rapping her fork against the plate, waiting for her friends to show up to the emergency dinner meeting she had called. To pass the time she pulled out her phone and was so engrossed that she didn't notice her friends until they placed their plates down and pulled back their chairs. She looked up at them with wide eyes and a pout gracing her face.

Nicole started first, "Polly, what's wrong?"

"Hi guys," Polly sighed before continuing, "I got sadness." She said dejectedly.

“Is that code for bad salad or something? Because this smells a little fishy to me.” Jenna asked.

“Didn't you get tuna?” Dave asked her as he settled into the chair next to her.  
"Is that code for a bad meal, because I had doubts about the quinoa too?" Jenna asked.

"No, I took a Buzzfeed quiz about which 'Inside Out' emotion I was and I got 'sadness.' I am not 'sadness'! Look at how happy I am! I am the epitome of joy!" Polly banged the table.

“Are you sure because you seem just the teensiest bit…upset.” Dave tried to choose a word that wouldn't make Polly any more mad. It didn't work.

"Really? Because you seem a teensy bit mad to me..." Dave said.

"How dare you? I am not 'anger.' If anything, I'd be 'disgust' because I'm utterly disgusted by the result of this quiz. Ugh!" She paused for a second. "But what if...what if I really am 'sadness' instead of 'joy?' All this time I thought I was such a happy person, and now I'm...I'm not. What if my whole life has been a lie? What if aliens are real? What if Absolute Zero can be breached?"

"Actually, I recently read a journal article about how scientists found that molecules actually have more energy below 0 Kelvin..." Dave added.

"WHAT? Somebody hold me, I'm so scared." She started rocking back and forth in her chair.

"There, there." Jenna patted her shoulders while shooting Dave a look.

"Come now, Polly. That was just a quiz. But is that why you called this meeting? I'm pretty sure we reserved the 'OMG 9-1-1' text for actual emergencies after that last quiz about which dinosaur you were offended you. I left my transformation on the heating block. My bacteria have probably fried by now!" Nicole said.

"OK, three things. First, I am really sorry about your bacteria, but aren't you testing them for heat resistance? Second, it said I was 'Nanostegos,' which was an obvious dig at my height. I mean I get it. My 5' 3-ness is short here but it's perfectly average for Indian females and that quiz was being sexist and racist! How dare they? Lastly, I do have a real emergency you guys. I don’t think the people in my new lab like me..."

“Polly, how is that possible?” Nicole asked. “Claire and Max already like you and, clearly, Dr. Wymore doesn't hate you so that's already half the lab, isn't it?”

“Yeah and .5 rounds up to one so that means the whole lab likes you too.” Jenna tried adding helpfully.

“No but you guys there are three other people there who don’t! And that's also half of the lab which rounds up to the entire lab hating me!” Polly continued.

“But are you using the correct number of significant digits? Because then each person is just one and that rounds down to zero, so we're back to zero people hating you.” Dave supplied.

“But then that also means zero people like me!”

"Yeah but if you take a ratio of the people who like you versus the ones who don't, you get one…or infinity, neither of which—” Dave replied.

Jenna jumped in, “Oh that reminds me! Have you guys heard of Siri’s reply when you ask her what ‘zero divided by zero is?’ It's even better than asking her ‘what does the fox say?’ Try it out Polly.”

Polly excitedly picked up her phone, “Ooh, ok. Siri, what is zero divided by zero?”

The semi-robotic voice responded, “Imagine that you had zero cookies and you wanted to split them between zero friends. See? It doesn't make any sense. And Cookie Monster is sad that there are no cookies and you are sad because you have no friends.”

Polly's jaw dropped.

Jenna’s face flushed, “On second thought maybe this wasn't the best time.”

Polly was bordering on tears now.

"Ok, this line of conversation obviously isn't helping. Why don't you just tell us what happened Polly?” Nicole suggested.

"Alright,” Polly began. “So as you all already know, I met with Dr. Wymore this morning and he said I could join his lab. And I thought great! Problem solved, right? And then he took me for a quick tour of the lab. He was talking about all the many uses of yeast in bread and…wait, maybe he was talking about what he had for breakfast. Or maybe I was just thinking about breakfast since I skipped it. Hmm...doesn't matter. So I step in and I spot Claire immediately at a bench by the door and a row behind is Max’s bench. I saw an empty chair by her so I went over and put my purse down, just for a second, mind you, to say hi when suddenly her eyes go wide and this other lady walks up behind me and says, ‘You're in my spot.’ Just. Like. That. No introduction, no pleasantries. Just ‘you're in my spot.’”

“But you were in her spot, weren't you?” Nicole asked.

“Nicky, stop thinking rationally and be on my side! The least she could've done was say ‘Hi!’ And then ‘you're in my spot.’”

“Who knows, maybe she's like Sheldon, you know? Brilliant but quirky without the greatest of social skills.” Jenna said.

“But Sheldon doesn't control Leonard's career! Because to make matters worse she’s the postdoc slash lab manager. The one I'm supposed to be shadowing! And I already got on her bad side! So now I have to share my bench space with Max, which isn't even the biggest problem. Dr. Wymore said he wants me to sort of shadow this Dr. Bloom before she leaves and –”

“Wait, her name’s Dr. Bloom?” Jenna's eyes went wide. “She wouldn't be related to Orlando, would she?”

“Really, Jenna, really? That's what you took out of my misery?” Polly replied at the same time Dave interrupted,

“Your boyfriend is right here and you're getting all goo-goo eyes for another guy?”

“Firstly he's a pirate and an elf! A ‘pelf.’ How many pelves do you know who can pull off long hair? And don't get upset at me when you get all ga-ga for Lady Gaga! You almost fainted when she looked towards our side of the stadium—not even our row, just the side!”

“I'm telling you I didn't faint! I was pushed down by the horde of screaming teens behind me.”

"Well if you were a pelf you would be too strong to push down!”

“Why don't you date a pelf then? See, now you've got me saying that non-word too!”

“Maybe I will!” Jenna declared.

Polly finally had had it. “OMG you guys! I assembled you all here like the Avengers post-fake Coulson death to help me solve my problems and now you're just bickering like the Avengers pre-fake Coulson death! If I have to fake-sacrifice myself so you can get it together, so help me I will! But I only trust Nicole to pull a Tahiti on me.”

Nicole interrupted, “Sure Polly—deal. But I really do need to get to back to my bacteria so could you continue from where you had to shadow Dr. Bloom?”

Jenna looked dreamily into the distance while Dave nudged her with his spoon as Polly continued,   
“Right, so then I apologized and went to say hi to the master’s student and all I got out of her and the other senior working in the lab were small nods. How can I work with someone who doesn't like me? Clearly I upset the lab manager and it permeated through making the rest of them dislike me by default. My career is ruined!” 

“Polly, don't you think you’re maybe just…overreacting a little?” Dave posed.

“No I am not! And my med school future is once again at stake! Have you ever heard of a student finishing a thesis after ticking off the lab manager? No! Ugh, I should have just sucked it up when Algernon bit me and not thrown him into the hood.” Polly placed her head down on the table while Jenna patted her back soothingly. 

Nicole started, “True but unless a DeLorean DMC12 appears—”

“What's that? An invisibility chamber?” Polly asked only tilting her head while it still rested on the table.

“No! It's a time machine! Polly how have you not seen Back to the Future?! It’s a classic.” Nicole defended.

“Nicky you know I'm too young to appreciate classics. You can only expect me to understand references from movies your kids would watch.”

“Whatever, my point is without a time machine, that's not happening. I think you should begin your first day tomorrow with a peace offering. Donuts, pretzels perhaps? Or as donkey said, ‘Everybody loves cake!’ And then you could go from there.” Nicole said.

“Wow, Nicky, you made a reference from the early 2000’s! And that's a really good idea! I think I'll make my Nutella ice cream cheesecake. But…but what if they don't like it? What if they're allergic to nuts? What if I make someone go into anaphylaxis?” Polly's face was a combination of panic and fear yet again.

“Couldn't you just text Claire and ask her that?” Nicole started to stand up with her glass balanced neatly in her bowl that was placed in the center of her plate.

“You're right! Gosh, you're so smart and wise Nicole. Come let me give you a hug of gratitude.”

“That's not really—” was all Nicole managed to say before Polly had enveloped her into a hug, but less than a second later she shrieked and jumped back, a large stain now gracing the front of her shirt. Seeing this Polly started crying again.

“I'm so sorry Polly! Here let me help you to your room and you can change.”

Polly nodded between her tears and was led away by Nicole.

“Wow, this really hasn't been her week, huh?” Dave remarked.

“Yeah, even though she disagrees, that quiz she took earlier was totally on the nose.” Jenna agreed.

“Don't you mean on the spot?” Dave raised his eyebrows and smirked as Jenna rolled her eyes.  
Polly was already half way done mixing the ingredients to the no-bake cake, because she was never short on pie crusts, Nutella, and cream cheese after the Snowmageddon of 2010, when she got Claire’s message saying,   
“No one has any allergies that I know of but Radiya only eats something called ‘halal,’ which is basically like kosher. See you tomorrow.”  
And then one second later, “At Nine A.M., as in eastern daylight savings time. Not central, not mountain, not pacific, and not standard.”  
“Yes mom.” Polly replied.  
In fact Polly arrived even earlier, at 8:30, so that she could place the cake the in the freezer of the lunch room before heading down to the lab. Her cake was set and she had even managed to decorate it with some ground coffee (fine the coffee was technically from the cafeteria), she had read up on the most recent papers Dr. Wymore had published, and she had a great first day of lab outfit—black and white with a pop of color at the bottom and the sleeves. But what she didn’t have was the key to access the locked lunch room…and her ice cream was starting to melt. Polly was getting desperate. That cake was her ticket to getting the lab to like her, but it was not going to work if it had all melted into a pile of gushiness—and not of the warm and fuzzy variety. Well, maybe warm and fuzzy but not the kind you wanted to eat, you know?  
She couldn’t wait for a half hour for the main office to open and she couldn’t go back to her dorm under the already blazing midsummer sun. There was only one thing Polly could do—she had to break in. Technically, she had never broken into anything except for the time she accidentally leaned on the glass window at the pastry shop, but how was she to know they were undergoing repairs and hadn’t sealed in the window? Anyways, she hoped her years of watching It Takes a Thief would pay off and she looked through her bag for a paperclip and her credit card. She opened up the paperclip and stuck it into the keyhole and tried wedging the card in between the door and the jamb. While she was shimmying both of them she noticed that the condensation from the cake in was starting to leak onto her laptop case, the one with her university given laptop inside. Shoot!, she thought. She couldn’t just put the cake on the floor and the only other thing around was the fountain, which probably had the same or even more bacteria than the floor. She had no choice but to balance the cake on her head.  
And it was in this rather precarious position of having the a pie tin atop her head, her purse hanging off one shoulder, her laptop wedged between the other arm and her body, one hand holding a paperclip sticking into the keyhole of a locked door while the other was shoving a card trying to pry open said door that she heard someone clearing their throat off to her left. She froze and slowly turned to look.  
It was Max. In her shock she straightened up too quickly and the cake slipped off, but he was able to catch it.  
“What are you doing here?” Each asked the other.  
When it was clear Polly wasn’t going to answer, Max replied, “I come early because of the way the train schedule works; otherwise I’d be here a half hour late. Your turn. You do know that breaking and entering is a crime punishable by law, right? Care to explain what you’re doing or if I should call campus security—or maybe the mental health officials?”  
“Aren’t you just ha-ha-larious? For your information I was not breaking and entering…I was more… overcoming an obstacle that was preventing me from reaching my true potential.”  
“Really? Do you often overcome ‘obstacles’ by poking them with paperclips in their keyholes? And why is your ‘true potential’ in the first floor bio lunch room?”  
“Because—Wait, stop distracting me! I don’t have time to argue, Max. My cake is melting! Can you let me in or not?”  
He sighed, “Fine. But only because you’re bribing me with cake.” He said as he opened the door, much to Polly’s relief. “I did assume correctly that this cake is a bribe for the lab, right?”  
“I wouldn’t call it a ‘bribe’ as much as… overcoming an obstacle preventing me from reaching my true potential.”   
“Are you going to poke its keyhole too?”  
“I’m going to poke your keyhole, Maximillian.”  
“That’s not my name.”  
“Doesn’t matter, Maximothy.”  
“That’s not anyone’s name.”


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3:

In short, it worked. The cake was such a hit, in fact, that it had taken longer to actually cut it into slices than for all the slices to be in their respective eater’s stomachs. True, three plastic knives were broken in the process, but hey, their sacrifice was not in vain.  
Slowly, the other lab members opened up to her. It actually began that very same day as they all walked up the stairs from the ground floor, where the lab was situated, to the lunch room. Polly would ordinarily have led the march but she was still too anxious and fidgety, so she asked Claire to take the lead. She was so nervous that the others were a solid 30 feet ahead of her. All except the master’s student, Radiya. She held the door open for Polly with a small smile.   
“Thanks, but you don’t have to wait for me.” Polly told her as she went through.   
Radiya began, “Actually, I wanted to say something to you.”  
“Oh no! Are you talking about earlier? I didn’t fart, I swear! It was a test tube!”  
“What? No.” Radiya looked thoroughly perplexed. “I wanted to say thank you. Claire told me you asked about the lab’s dietary restrictions and how you made the cake according to them, especially mine. I really appreciate it and I apologize for any inconvenience.”  
Polly was taken aback. “Oh… Not at all! I don’t drink alcohol and sometimes when I go out that’s all they have to drink. So I definitely know how it feels to be the odd one out.”  
“That was very thoughtful of you. Thanks again…now about that test tube’s flatulence…?”

To explain, earlier that morning, Polly was placed on lab sanitation duty because Dr. Bloom said she was “not in the mood for babysitting.” This basically meant washing the dishes for three hours wherein she, for fun, placed her index finger in a test tube to see if it would fit (It did.) but it didn’t come out, hence leading to the aforementioned “fart like” sound. But once they started eating, the ice cold cake even managed to thaw Dr. Bloom’s cold demeanor.  
Polly had been so anxious waiting for Dr. Bloom’s reaction that she hadn’t even touched her slice yet, which was highly unusual for her.   
At last, Dr. Bloom began, “Wow. If you can make reagents as well as you can make cake, I think you’re due for a promotion.”  
“Really? Thank you, Dr. Bloom!”  
“Call me Daisy.”  
“Ok, Daisy. Thank you!”  
(Whoa, first name basis! Even Claire winked at her and smiled, giving her a thumbs up. Mission accomplished.)  
The only person who remained unimpressed was the senior lab student. He had seated himself as far as possible from the others, which wasn’t really too far because the table only seated ten. Polly had waited to see if he would take the last slice, but he still hadn’t by the time Dr. Wymore had finished and left for a meeting.  
“Wilfred, do you want a slice?” Polly offered. She saw the others look up in alarm.   
Before she could register the meaning behind their glances, he said, “That is not my name and as such I cannot take something proffered to another.”  
“Uhh, then why does it say ‘Wilfred’ on your bib?”  
“It is not a bib! It is a napkin, hand embroidered by my mother.”  
“So are you saying your mother got your name wrong?” Polly heard some giggles in response.  
“No! My mother did not get—”  
“Ooookaaay, Polly this is Copernicus and Copernicus, this is Polly. As in our new student and your and Max’s new benchmate. Ok? Be nice.” Dr. Bloom intervened.   
“I agree to cease hostilities until further notice.” He said before returning to his grapes.   
As they all headed back to lab, Claire whispered, “Yeah so he’s always like that. He’s smart but doesn’t respect anyone without ‘Ph.D.’ after their name. And that too only a doctor of the sciences; the humanities don’t count for him.”  
“Why? Because he calls himself Copernicus and he’s the center of his own universe?”  
“Exactly.”

Dr. Bloom, er, Daisy, kept her promise. She was actually a really great mentor. She would first show Polly how to follow a certain a protocol and then she’d have Polly do one under supervision and one without supervision. By the end of the week Polly had learned a lot—like how there was a Dr. Southern but not a Dr. Western or Dr. Northern and how there’s no actual stripping involved in stripping buffer. By the end of the month, Daisy even had Polly working on her own mini-project.   
And eventually Polly managed to get on Copernicus’ good side, well as much as it was possible anyways; and it was all thanks to a bug. It was around the time of Shark Week when Polly had come in early to get reagents ready to separate proteins; she wanted to prove to Daisy and Dr. Wymore that their investment in her was not for naught. And considering that it was only 7A.M., the door was closed, and the lights were dim, she hadn’t expected anyone to be in yet. So she came in through the side door incubator that led to the bench she shared with Max and Copernicus. But as she turned and opened the door that led to the lab she heard someone yell,   
“INTRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER ALERT! I’ve got you now, Usurper!” as she felt something stringy and plastic-y all over face and clothes.  
“AH! Copernicus! What are you doing??!!” She shouted. “Are you crazy? Wait, don’t answer that ‘cuz the answer’s obviously yes!” as she picked off the reddish string.   
“Oh, it’s you.” he stated drily and went back to work. “I suggest you use the emergency shower—I treated the silly string with red food coloring.”  
“What in the—? Why would you—? Is there a logical reason why you sprayed me with food color dipped silly string?”  
“Yes—because I wasn’t allowed to use chloroform and ethidium bromide. Apparently ethidium bromide is a ‘health hazard’ and ‘carcinogenic.’” Copernicus said using air quotes.  
“Any why on earth would you spray anyone with either of those?”  
“Did you sleep through middle school level chemistry? Because obviously chloroform would knock him out and if the Usurper somehow managed to escape I could track the ethidium bromide on him with a UV light and bring him to justice!” Copernicus held put his hand as if holding a flaming torch.   
“Okayyy. Who in the world is the Usurper?” Polly asked as she removed the string piece by piece. There were red stains all over her. Her dress would have to be dry-cleaned, she thought.  
“Who indeed? I’ve noticed over the past few weeks that some of our supplies have been missing or the pipettes are moved. My guess is someone from the Schumacher lab upstairs, the Winslow lab two doors down, or a physical embodiment of all the yeast cells we’ve dumped down the drain come to haunt us.”  
“Uh-huh. Suuure, like a giant yeasty ghost. With hands and sentient thought and everything? Lol.” Polly turned around to dump out all the string and wash her hands.  
“You mock me now but just wait until I—Aaahh!” Copernicus yelled.  
“What? Who? Usurper?” Polly turned around to see Copernicus having scrambled up onto the desk, which barely held his six foot plus body. “Why are you on the bench?” She enunciated each syllable.  
Copernicus merely pointed, eyes almost impossibly wide and bulging, and Polly followed his line of sight to a—giant cockroach. Now, don’t get me wrong, Polly isn’t scared of just your average sized critter. Having lived in dorms for more than two years had desensitized her to the run-of-the-mill spider and silverfish. But this cockroach was huge! As in as big as your whole hand huge and spilling out of it! She resisted the screaming coming from nearly every fiber of her being to assume the same position as her lab mate.  
But wait, Polly. She thought to herself. If you can handle this better than Copernicus, maybe he’ll finally stop acting so high and mighty. Or at the least, you know a way to scare him into it.  
“Why are you smiling sardonically?” Copernicus’ words took her out of her state of mind.  
“Oh, yes, sorry! I have an idea. Hand me that petri dish over there. Just the lid, it won’t fit in the bottom.”  
“What are you doing?” He said as handed it to her.  
Polly steeled herself and crept closer to monstrous bug, hoping it wouldn’t move or fly into her face or poop out a thousand babies. She had seen that once on a YouTube video and it still creeped her out. She shook her head trying to get that image out and focused on the cockroach. Slowly she moved the petri dish closer and closer and Whop! She dropped it right onto the bug. It was so large that two of its legs were still hanging out of it.  
“Get it! Get it! Get it! Get it! Get it!” Copernicus screamed from behind her.   
“No, you need to get me a piece of paper.”   
“But, but…all we have is 30lb weight; it’s really good quality!”  
“Are you kidding me right now? Fine, then I’ll just take a page from your notebook.”  
“NO! Fine—here you go.” He gave her a sheet of paper while still perched atop the bench.  
Polly slid it under the petri dish until it was pushed through to the other side. Then while pushing down with her left hand, she wrapped the paper up and over to ensure the cockroach wouldn’t escape. Holding the paper encased petri dish and cockroach, and hoping it wouldn’t escape, she dashed out and placed it in the giant garbage bin outside. A win-win for the bug and for her.  
Happy with herself, “Thank you!” she yelled as Dr. Wymore came by.  
“Polly, why were you screaming ‘Thank you’ to a trash can?” he asked.  
“Ummm—because, you see, garbage bins are just unappreciated, you know? We look at them so disdainfully and think they’re dirty but really, they’re just keeping all the dirt away from us.”  
“Uh-huh. I do see your point. Thank you garbage receptacle.” he too said before heading in.  
Although Copernicus didn’t say anything to her when she got back, a few days later there was a package on her seat with the same kind of dress that had been ruined with silly string.

Pretty soon the end of the summer came and talk shifted from whether or not a Spinosaurus could beat Indominus Rex (Polly and Claire thought yes because the Spinosaurus from Jurassic Park 3 single handedly defeated the T-Rex, Max and Daisy thought no because the Indominus had a much bigger snout, Copernicus thought they were all crazy and that a Zombie Apocalypse was more realistic, and Radiya said “If we’re pretending that dinosaurs can come back to life then I’m also pretending that billionaires can make nigh indestructible flying suits, so why wouldn’t we just call in Iron Man?”) to Daisy’s Farwell Party.  
Obviously it had to be planned in secret so Polly sent around notes, on the bottom of Petri dishes, mind you, to be surreptitious, telling the others to stay a bit later that day after Daisy left to pick up her kids from daycare. Everyone, even Copernicus to Polly’s surprise, agreed.   
After Daisy had left, Polly took a test tube and hit it on the side of a flask,   
“Hear ye, Hear ye! Today—” Smash! The test tube shattered. “Ooops. I’ll get that later. As the leader of the Party Planning Committee, I declare this assembly—”  
Max raised his hand.  
Polly rolled her eyes, “Yes?”  
“Who died and made you the leader?”  
Claire elbowed him.  
“That’s totes rude, dude! If I was a king I’d make you dig a moat around my castle with only your hands as punishment.” Polly retorted while drawing a circle with her index finger.  
Copernicus grumbled, “It’s ‘If I were king,’ not ‘If I was;’ oh the humanities…”  
At the same Max asked, “Uhh unless there’s something you’re not telling us, wouldn’t you be a queen, not a king?”  
“That’s rather sexist. If Elizabeth Swann can be the ‘Pirate King,’ I can be king too! Now can I go back to declaring this assembly—”  
Max interrupted, “You didn’t answer my first question yet…Because if there was an election I’d have voted for someone else.”   
“Ex-squeeze you, it was a self-appointed position. Any other questions?”  
“Yeah, why do you say ‘ex-squeeze you’ instead of ‘excuse you’ like every other person?”  
Polly sighed exasperatedly. “Because if you keep interrupting me I’ll squeeze the living daylights out of you!”  
“Wow, temper. I don’t know if we want someone like that in charge of what should be a happy event for Dr. Bloom.” Max answered back.  
“Speaking of which, can we please get back to planning that? My ficus needs watering.” Copernicus said dryly.  
“Of course it does.” Max responded.   
Polly shot him a look before continuing, “Yes, thank you Copernicus. Actually, let’s begin with you. Do you have any ideas for what Daisy might like?”  
“As per Maslow, the basal level of human needs includes water, food, shelter, sleep, and sex. So something from that list should help her attain psychological and physiological fulfillment.”  
Everyone else just stood there with expressions of shock.  
First to recover was Radiya who replied, “Well because the party will be held in a building with cake and drinks the first three ‘needs’ will be fulfilled, and unless the party is super boring she won’t need to sleep there, and the last thing you said is straight up illegal.”  
Copernicus merely shrugged.  
Claire jumped in, “Well like her name, Daisy Bloom, she loves flowers. So how about flowers everywhere? And the food could be flower shaped too. I’ll make the cake!”  
“And I could bring in appetizers—spring rolls and pizza bites.” Radiya volunteered.  
“I’ll get plates, spoons, and cups and buy the drinks. Dr. Wymore said he’ll buy her a present. That leaves Max and Copernicus. What will you two do?” Polly inquired.  
“We could decorate?” Max suggested.  
“Really?” Both Copernicus and Polly asked him.  
“Yeah,” he replied. “I like Claire’s idea. How about I get balloons and streamers and Copernicus you can get flowers.”  
“Ok, cool. Awesome you guys, so let’s plan for the end of this week. I’ll e-mail the rest of the department when I have the room reserved. And so, I declare this meeting adjourned.” Polly turned to leave when her foot crunched on some glass. “Right after I clean this up.”

For the next few days there were furtive glances and secret messages passed about the party, about which Polly had sent e-mails to everyone in the department with the subject “Adieu á Daisy- TOP SECRET.” She went over to help Claire with the cake on Thursday.  
They were frosting it when Claire said, “Polly would you please stop shaking the tube so much? These are looking less like flowers and more like a pile of worms.”  
“Sorry, I’m just suuuper excited! Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve been to a party?”  
“Umm, didn’t you go with Nicole to something last Wednesday?”  
“Yes but it was just a pre-fall semester reception for other scholarship recipients. That doesn’t count.”  
“Was there food?”  
“Yes.”  
“Drinks?”  
“Yes.”  
“Themed Decorations?”  
“Yes…I don’t see where you’re going with this. Anyways the last real party I went to was back in freshman year. I stopped after people made fun of me. You were there; you remember, don’t you?”  
“Umm, I do recall being there, but I don’t remember the making fun part? What did they say?”  
“They called me ‘chocolate’ as an obvious dig at my skin color.”  
“But weren’t you also wearing a dress that had chocolate bars printed all over it?”  
“And I can never wear that dress again…” Polly looked away wistfully. “Except for, you know, yesterday when I took a photo of me eating a giant Milky Way bar in it to match, but that’s it.”  
“Uh-huh, ok.”  
“What’s that supposed to mean?”  
“Nothing.” Claire said innocently.  
“Right.” Polly squirted some frosting at her face.  
“Hey!” Claire shot back.   
By the end of the night, there were equal parts frosting on the cake and on their clothes.

While Claire and Polly were busy getting the cake ready, Max and Copernicus were decorating the room. Each had a box and carried it up to the third floor of the Thomas building.  
“Why—did Polly—have to—reserve—a room—in Thomas?” Max huffed out with each step. “It has—the stupid—Mezzanine level—that’s always—like ‘tricked ya!’—one more—floor up—loser.”  
“Do you often feel as if buildings are talking to you?” Copernicus, who with his tall legs was gliding up the stairs in comparison to Max, said calmly. “If so, I know an excellent therapist.”  
“Who? Yours? No thanks, you’re just as crazy as when I first met you.” Max replied.  
“Ha ha, I’m not crazy. My counselor tested me in my second hour of kindergarten.”  
“Second hour, huh? That’s a lot longer than I would have lasted.”  
“I know; it was torture for me. I still remember—”   
“No what I meant was that was a longer than I would have thought your teachers would have lasted with you.”  
“My teachers? I assure you I was nothing but a gift to them; several of them would not be able to use the subjunctive were it not for me.”  
“Yeah, yeah, let’s see how gifted you are with decorating. I want it to look perfect for Claire.”  
“Don’t you mean Dr. Bloom?”   
Max quickly corrected himself, “Yes, of course, I just meant it should be as Claire envisioned it for Dr. Bloom. I’ll start by the windows over there and you can start by sprucing up this door.”  
Each had his back to the other as they worked. When Max was finally done placing the streamers and balloons by the windows, in a diamond shape in honor of yeast tetrads, he turned around to see how far along Copernicus had gotten.  
“AHH!” Max screamed.  
“What? What happened? Ohh—Did you realize your tetrad isn’t symmetrical? See pull it down over—” Copernicus pointed to the top right corner.  
“It’s perfect, leave it alone. What are you putting all over the door? Those just look like roots! And is that a dried earthworm??”  
“These are exactly what was asked for—flowers!”   
“No they are not!”  
“Yes they are, see!” Copernicus pointed to a small little cluster of yellow-ish petals.  
“Dandelions? You got Dandelions??” Max asked in astonishment.  
“Yes my neighbor had collected them all in a bag and I thought why should a perfectly good collection of specimens from Angiospermae go to waste?”  
“Because they’re dandelions—they’re weeds! That’s why you let them go to waste!”  
“Just because you deem they inferior to other plants does not mean they are not flowers!”  
Max was tired of arguing, “Fine, you got flowers, thanks. Now can you get ones that are actually nice to look at and don’t have roots and worms attached to them?”  
“Question—Can I get them from the University orchards?”  
“No! Here’s some money, go buy some. Without trespassing onto anyone’s property. Please. I’ll just take these and clean this mess up in the meantime.”  
Despite the initial setbacks, the boys did finally succeed in their decorations, although it took them well past midnight to finish. The entire department had showed up and “oohed” and “aahed” accordingly when they first stepped into the room and when Claire and Polly brought out the two tier cake. Daisy loved it and some tears even escaped her eyes. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, well except for Copernicus who was sleeping by the AC.  
Radiya said to Polly and Claire, “I guess he’s making sure he fulfills Maslow’s hierarchy after all.”  
Polly replied, “Yeah, I guess he and Max really spent a long time setting up. It looks great though.”  
Claire gestured for Max to join them, “Max, this looks amazing!”  
“Thanks!” he beamed. He turned to point out the tetrad to them. “See, I made it look like the diamond capsule and used the balloons as spores.”  
“Cool!” Claire replied. “I want to see it up close.” she said and headed over to the windows.   
Max got some lemonade and headed to join her but saw that Claire was talking, and laughing, with some other guy. He froze in his steps so quickly that some of the lemonade spilled out.  
“Dude! Whadja do that for?” Polly yelled. “Aren’t you a little young to be getting cataracts? Unless… are you secretly a 70-year old in disguise—‘cuz that would explain a lot.” When Max hadn’t responded yet Polly followed his line of vision. “Hey, you ok?”  
“Uh-huh. Who is that?” he finally asked.  
“Oh, you mean nuzzling up to Claire? That’s Nathaniel O’Hare. Nate for short. Business major, Former Gymnast, Varsity Soccer player, and her ex.”  
“Business major? Why’s he even here?”  
“Beats me.” Polly said as she bit into a spring roll.  
“…And why’d he become an ex?”  
“Uhh, I think he wanted to, um, go around the bases as the kids call it, and she, because of her Catholic beliefs, didn’t want to. So he broke up with her.”  
“I don’t remember hearing Claire mention his name before…”  
“Yeah, probably because this all went down before sophomore year. It still stings her.”  
“Hmm, if it still stings why are they hugging?”  
Polly gasped, “Maybe Clarinet’s back together! You know that’s what I called them when they were a couple and adorable before he started being a jerk. But he better act like the guy she deserves this time!”  
“Yeah, he better.” Max said softly before turning to leave.  
“You’re leaving already? Seriously, you need to stop acting like an old man! We haven’t even given Daisy her present yet!”  
“Umm, I signed her card already. I have to catch the train… Bye.”  
“You’re being weird, even for you!” Polly shouted after him. “Hey, can I eat your slice since you’re not? I wouldn’t want it to go to waste! It’s bad for the economy and global warming or something. Think of the polar bears!”


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4:

It was exactly 68 hours until the start of the fall semester and Polly was sitting down to update her lab journal as she does regularly, well if you consider once a month to be regular.  
“Darn it, why—do I—do this—to—myself?” She banged her head on the bench and the glass reagent bottles above her rattled. She had less of a notebook and more of a heap of stickies with blurbs about what she had done. “Transform Snf1” one said, “1056bp extraction,” another said, “Don’t have three desserts with every meal!”—Wait, that was one from her mom.  
“Keep that up and an entire month’s supply of reagents will have fallen on you. Think of all the lost experiments!” Copernicus said.   
“Really, at the thought of a thousand bottles crushing me all you think about is the lost experiments?”  
“Oh it’s not a thousand; there are exactly 257 bottles. And one must put science ahead of all else.” He said simply as he returned to typing whatever he was typing.  
“I don’t think science must be put ahead all else. Don’t get me wrong, I love science and want to do it for the rest of my life and stuff but that’s not all I want to do. I think it’s really important to keep hobbies and work out and other things like that.” Polly replied.  
“I agree with you Polly; but I would also add things like love and family to that list.” Claire said from the bench in front, with her back facing Polly, Copernicus, and Max.  
“Yes, it’s important to be well-rounded and have others to keep you grounded.” Radiya responded from Claire’s left.  
“See, Copernicus? How about you, Max?” Polly turned to her right when she didn’t hear a reply from him after a few seconds. He was staring ahead to the bench in front of theirs.  
“Max?” she elbowed him breaking him out of his trance.  
“Huh? What?” he was still looking ahead.  
“Do you put science ahead of everything else?”   
“Well, if I had something else I cared deeply about, she, er, that… thing would be number one. But right now, all I have is science.” He paused before mumbling, “At least my yeast listen to me, they take up DNA when I give it to them, and they don’t waste time getting together with yeast of other mating types that are not compatible with them, especially if they have—”  
“Oh that’s right, I did yeast matings too!” Polly flipped through her sticky notes as she found the ones she had written on heart shaped ones for the matings.  
“Hey Polly, if you want I can help organize your notes for a few minutes before I go get changed. I have date with Nate.” Claire said happily as she came over to the back bench.  
“Ooh, is this already your third date with Nathaniel O’Hare? I do say Ms. Claire, you seem to be moving things awfully fast!” Polly joked in a faux-Southern accent.  
Claire blushed before saying, “Well, he said he was really upset last year and beat himself up about it. So then he worked up his courage to come to party, because he had heard about it from his friend in the Netter lab, to ask for a second chance. Aaand guess what he gave me two nights ago? This!” She held out her hand and there was a ring on her finger.  
“You’re engaged?!” Max asked, a little harshly.  
“What? No! This is just a promise ring he gave me. He has a matching one too… Why do you seem upset?” Claire inquired softly.  
“Yeah, why are you upset Max?” Polly asked narrowing her eyes.  
“What? Upset? Me? No! I was just…surprised at how fast things are going between you and your ex…” He emphasized the last word. “We’re getting ready to publish Radiya and Dr. Bloom’s papers soon and I don’t think we ought to be distracted as we work to get them out.”  
Polly intervened. “Actually, I’m just about done. Thanks Claire! I think you should go change. Nate will probably be here soon.”  
Claire, who was a bit hurt from Max’s words, turned back to Polly and asked, “Are you sure? You literally have stickies coming out of your hair!” She unstuck the two on Polly’s head and handed them to her; one read “Stop Using Stickies!” And the other said “Buy more Stickies!”  
“Yes, well, I meant to have those there! I’ll watch your stuff. You go get ready!” Polly nearly pushed Claire out into the hallway.  
Copernicus and Radiya had gone up to use the incubator so it was only the three left in lab. Well, two, technically since Claire was changing. Polly turned around and charged back towards Max.  
“Just what do you think you’re doing?!” She exclaimed at him.  
“What?” He shrugged and pretended to transfer something between test tubes when Polly snatched his pipette from him. “Hey! Give it back!”  
“Not until you tell me why you’re acting more like a grumpy curmudgeon than ever before!”  
“I don’t know what you’re taking about. I’m fine.”  
“Fine, then I’ll just take what’s in this tube…ooh we have some fine fluffy contaminants here, and mix it with yours.”  
“No! What are you doing?”  
“No, what are you doing?” Polly shot back.  
“What are you doing?”  
“No, what are you doing? And don’t say ‘what are you doing’ again ‘cuz now we’re just quoting Pirates of the Caribbean and you know how distracted I get when I start quoting things; it’s just a slippery slope like in the tenth A Series of Unfortunate Events book when—see! No, you know what, I think you’re jealous.”  
“Whaaat?” Max feigned innocence.  
“I know you said it like that intentionally to make me think about Despicable Me but stop it! You like Claire and now that she’s with Nathaniel O’Hare and she’s wearing his promise ring and they’re going on a third date and they’ll be together for—”   
“Stop!” It seemed like he scared himself with the outburst. “Promise me you won’t tell Claire. Please.”  
“Why?”   
“Because I’m thinking of doing another rotation next semester and I don’t want her to think it’s because of her.”  
“Because it is?”  
“No! It’s because of… O’Hare. I can’t stand how he just waltzes in and thinks he can claim her! Ugh, O’Hare, O’Hare, O’Hare! I just—”   
Rap-a-tap came a knock from the front. Nate poked his head in.  
“Umm, is Claire here?” he asked.  
“Speak of the devil.” Max whispered as Polly elbowed him again.   
“Hey Nate, yeah she’s here. She’s just getting ready. She’ll probably be out in a minute.” Polly replied.   
“Ok, cool. Can I sit here?” Nate motioned to a bench and already started sitting before he asked.  
“Yeah, sure mi casa es su casa.” Max drawled out.  
“Oh you speak Chinese? Nice. It’s just like my tattoo, see?” He held up his right tricep revealing words in the shape of a flower in what was clearly not Mandarin, probably French.  
A few moments of awkward silence elapsed before Nate cleared his throat and asked, “This may sound weird but I have like 20/20 hearing or something, at least that’s what I think my doctor said, and it felt like I heard my name when I was walking up here…”  
Polly and Max shared alarmed glances.  
Max started, “What? You heard ‘Nate’? That’s weird.”   
Nate clarified, “No. Not, ‘Nate.’ I heard ‘O’Hare’ a bunch of times.”  
This time Polly jumped in, her voice slightly higher than usual, “What, you heard ‘O’Hare’? No, I think you got that confused with… ‘O Where?’” she said emphasizing the “h” in “where.”  
She continued, “Yeah so you see Max lost his pipette so he was just singing, ‘O Where, O Where has my piiii-pette gone?’” Polly indicated to Max that he should join in and he seemed to have caught on, as they both sang,  
“O Where, O Where could it be?”   
Then Polly took over as Max mumbled unintelligibly, “With its color so blue and its tip so long…”   
And Max jumped in again, “O Where, O Where could it beeee?”  
“Oh, Ok. Why do you make the ‘h’ so breathy? Ooh, do you say Wheat Thins instead of Wheat Thins, too?” Nate asked.  
Polly faked laughter. “Ha-ha, that’s sooo funny, right Max? Isn’t Nate hilarious?”  
“Yup, he’s a total joke...ster.”  
Before another awkward silence could commence, Claire made it back.  
She was beaming and wore a pink and purple striped sundress that complemented her eyes.   
“Hi Claire-bear!”  
“Hi!” She leaned up and gave Nate a hug.  
“Ready to head out?”  
“Yup, let me just get my bag. See you guys.” She turned with her smile wavering a little.  
“Oh and Claire, sorry for earlier. I think I feel a bit of a fever coming or something. That’s why I was a bit…snappy. Sorry.” Max said softly.  
“Oh no, I hope you feel better! No problem at all Max. I can bring you some soup over the weekend, if you want.”  
“No thanks, I wouldn’t want you to become sick…and then Nate,” Max said the name through his teeth, “would also get sick, and we wouldn’t want that, now would we?”  
Nate scrambled out of the door as he said, “Dude, you’re sick? Why didn’t you say so earlier? I have a game on Sunday! Come on Claire I gotta get out of here.”  
“Yeah, Ok. Let me know if you change your mind. Bye Max, Bye Polly.”  
“Bye.” They both waved.   
As soon as they were gone, though, Polly transitioned abruptly from waving to whacking Max again.  
“Ow! Seriously! Why do you keep hitting me? I’m going to have to bill you for all these bruises!”  
“Oh, hush up! You seriously can’t be considering changing labs just because of this. Come on!”  
“Yeah, well you see when I said was ‘thinking’ about it, what I meant was I already filled out all the paperwork and had Dr. Wymore sign the forms.”  
“Are you kidding me right now?”  
“So actually today was…is my last day here. At least for a semester…or two…or more…”  
“Max! What?! Why didn’t you tell us this? We would’ve at least thrown you a surprise party!”  
“Yeah, after the last one I don’t really want any more surprises in my life.”  
“Ok, dude you need to chill. I think you’re over-reacting.”  
“No, I’m not. I’m completely chill. I just realized that… it would be nice to explore a world outside of yeast, you know?”  
“Really, and what kind of world would that be?”  
“One with the fascinating photosynthetic autotrophic organisms known as algae.”  
“So basically green yeast?”  
Max sighed. “Yeah, well, I have to catch the train. See you around.”  
“You need a better excuse than that every time you want to make an exit!”

On Sunday night the entire lab got an e-mail from Max wherein he thanked everyone for making his lab experience so enjoyable and hoped they all would have a good semester and year. Polly was about to reply with an email using a lot of CAPSLOCK, Bold, Italics, and Underlines, although she wasn’t quite sure what exactly she would write, when the door to her new suite-style dorm, which her family had helped her move into a day ago, slammed open.   
“Ahh!” She jumped from her seat in the living room space and spilled popcorn all over herself.  
From the outside, someone was shoving something big and boxy over the threshold.  
“Who are you and why are you storing a dead body in here?!”  
As the box was finally pushed all the way over, a tall and muscular girl appeared at the entrance. “Hi, I’m Leslie. I’m your roommate.”  
Polly raised her eyebrows, “What?” She hadn’t had a roommate in…ever. She’d been living in singles since freshman year. “I distinctly remember checking the ‘single’ option under housing.”  
“Well, yeah, that’s why there are two single bedrooms in here and we share a bathroom and a living room.” Leslie said while kicking the box further in.  
“Two bedrooms? Wait. Wait, wait, wait. Wait. So that wasn’t a room for my jackets? Darn it! I knew it was too good to be true.”  
“You put stuff in my room?”  
“Ok, take it down a notch. You weren’t even here until legit a second ago—”  
“It’s been at least two minutes. And I would have been in earlier if my roommate heard my knocking for the past five before I had to get my keys from Security!” Leslie shot back.  
“Oh, that was you? I thought it was from the movie… Now that I think about that would have been really weird considering this is Lion King and there are no doors. Whatever, the point is I didn’t know you even existed until just now. So chill, I’m going to go into your room and take out all my stuff from it.”  
“Thank you.” Leslie replied curtly as she went to retrieve the remainder of her belongings while Polly got up to clear out what was to be Leslie’s room.  
After she had removed all her stuff and rearranged it into her room, Polly came out to finish what was left of her popcorn to find that the path to the living room was obstructed by a large mesh bag full of volleyballs.  
“Uhh, Leslie. I think you’ve misplaced your balls…”  
Leslie came out of her room. “No I haven’t, I just didn’t have any room for them in my space. So I put them here in the shared space.”  
“But then how can I get over to the sofa?”  
Leslie kicked the balls to the kitchenette space. “See?”  
“But then what if I want to get a snack after I’m sitting down? And what if it’s juice or something? It’ll spill. I can’t keep kicking balls around when moving through my space.”   
“Our space.”  
“Yes, sorry, our space. And why do even have so many?””  
“Because I’m part of the volleyball team. Fine, I’ll find some other place.”   
It wasn’t until the next morning when Polly realized that the “some other place” Leslie had found was the small pantry next to the front door. In preparation for her 9:30 Inorganic Chemistry class, Polly had just finished breakfast and was holding some pomegranate juice in her hand when she opened the pantry to get a few snack bars for the day and she was buried in an avalanche of volleyballs.  
“Ahh!” She screamed. “Help!”  
“What? What happened?” Leslie came out of her room.   
“Help, your balls attacked me and now I can’t get up.” Polly weakly said as she raised her hand.  
“Relax, there’s only, like, 20 of them. Here.” Leslie helped her up and then remarked, “Wow, you look like you’ve been shot.”  
“What?” Polly looked down and saw that her Pomegranate juice had spilled all over her cardigan. “Great! Now I’m going to be late for class, on my first day! Thanks!”  
It was a jam packed day of what was to be a jam packed semester. Knowing how important junior year is for med school, Polly had overloaded and was now overwhelmed. Her first day itself went from 9:30 until 6 P.M., and she hadn’t even had time for lunch. So when she exhaustedly made her way back to her dorm, she was hoping that her roommate would have at least cleaned up the volleyballs. But nope, less than two steps in Polly tripped on one of them and fell face first onto the rest of them. See, this is why she’d lived in a single before. That doesn’t mean she didn’t trip on stuff, she did, but it would usually be multiple throw pillows that did a much better job of breaking her fall.  
“Leslie!” she screamed.  
When after a minute she didn’t hear a response she got up, struggling to do so, and banged on her door.   
“Leslie! Why didn’t you clean up after yourself? What are you, five? Leslie!” Still not hearing anything she opened her roommate’s door and saw that she wasn’t there.  
“Ugh!” She marched back into the living room and kicked the balls into to Leslie’s room. Well, at least she tried kicking them in but knocked down the TV and then the vacuum so then she more nudged them harshly with her feet mumbling and grumbling the whole time.  
And then the next day, when Polly was grabbing a snack for lunch, the same thing happened, down to the pomegranate juice staining her outfit. She went to chide Leslie but she wasn’t there in her room. So again, Polly kicked the balls in and changed her outfit. She also got the box of snack bars out in case this was becoming a pattern.  
The rest of the week Polly didn’t see Leslie at all, being busy with not only classes and activities but also the tutoring she did twice a week. And frankly it didn’t bother her until she had to take the trash out Friday and needed to collect it in a large garbage bag that was, yes, in the pantry that was, yes, yet again full of volleyballs that crashed down on Polly. No juice this time, though.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5:

Polly couldn’t take it any longer. So after classes ended, she waited in the living room, staring at the door, wishing to actually see her roommate for the first time all week. Three boxes of Raisinets, two juice boxes, and one trip to the bathroom later Leslie finally came in—along with some random guy who had his arm slung over her shoulders.  
Leslie looked surprised to see her but quickly recovered, “So what are you still doing here?”  
“Uhh, I live here, just like you. But you, apparently, have forgotten some the common rules of the living agreement.”  
“Yeah, like what? Like making your roommate’s bedroom a mess ‘cuz you have done a spectacular job of that.”   
“Ok, that would not have happened if you didn’t keep stuffing your balls in the food pantry.”  
“Why do you even need to go open it, like, twenty times a day?”  
“Ex-squeeze you, I have an athlete’s metabolism.”  
“But I’m the athletic one here!”  
The guy she had brought with her spoke up then, “Umm, I think this is a bad time. I’ll see you later.” He said as he scuttled out of the room.  
“Great, now you’ve lost me my date to the Back to School Bash!” Leslie said exasperatedly.  
“Oh like it’s my fault! And the Bash was two days ago! So you’re clearly lying!”  
“I’m talking about the Bash that I’m throwing here tomorrow night, duh!”  
“Here? Tomorrow? Are you kidding me right now?! You cannot throw parties in here willy nilly, without at least consulting me!”  
“Well it’s not my fault you can’t read! I left a note on your door yesterday telling you.”  
“That? That was a napkin with smudges of sauce on it! My kindergartener brother has neater handwriting than that!”  
RapRapRapRapRapRapRapRapRapRapRapRapRapRapRap, came the door before at a rate of five knocks per second before a it was finally opened to reveal a petite brunette.  
“Lemme guess. Roommate drama?” she asked.  
Polly replied, “Uhh, yes. But who are you and how did you enter? Security!”  
“Calm down, I’m the RA. And actually security called me down to investigate some screaming from room the first floor of Hamilton, so here I am. What’s up?”  
Leslie answered, “‘What’s up’ is that I have a crazy old witch in the body of a middle aged woman as my roommate!”  
Polly scoffed, “Uhh, How dare you? I’m practically perfect in every way—like Mary Poppins!”  
Leslie continued, “Yeah and she ‘Pops in’ and keeps making my room a mess!”  
“Oh no you didn’t! You’re the one who tries to crush me under a sea of balls every day!”  
“Okayyy, at least I know I have the right room.” The RA noted something on her clipboard.  
“What are you writing down?” Polly stopped arguing to ask.   
“Oh, just a few counts of ‘Disorderly Conduct.’”  
“What?! You can’t put this on my record! I have to get in to medical school!”  
Leslie replied, “Well, boohoo for you.”  
The RA said, “It’s ‘boohoo’ for you, too, Leslie because you won’t be allowed to play in your game Sunday.”  
“What?!’ Leslie cried out. “Come on!”  
“I’ll do anything—Please!” Polly begged.  
“Yeah me too! Please.” Leslie pleaded as well.  
The RA sighed and seemed to consider what they said. “Well, we do have a daylong Roommates Recovery tomorrow. It’s geared more towards freshmen who can’t get along but you guys are just as bad if not worse…”  
“Hey!” Both girls protested.  
“Why don’t you come to that? If you make it through the entire day with going at each other’s throats, I’ll consider forgetting this whole altercation.”  
“Awesome, sign us up.” Leslie said.   
“Good, I’ll see you girls in the quad tomorrow at 9AM; breakfast is provided.”  
Polly replied with “Yup, that works. Thanks.”

Compared to that the rest of the night was uneventful aside from when Polly had to explain to her mother why she couldn’t visit that weekend. Let’s just say that even with volume on her computer turned down to 1%, Polly was certain her tympanic membranes had been damaged.  
Thus far Polly and Leslie hadn’t ever had to get ready at the same time, so at least there was no trouble until Saturday morning.  
“Whadja do that for? I was showering! You made the water all cold!” Polly yelled out from behind the curtains.  
“But I had to pee! What do you want me to do? Pee in the sink instead?”  
Then when they were getting ready in front of the mirror:  
“Why does your stuff take up so much room, Leslie! You have more tubes in here than the entire chemistry department!”   
“Yeah like your dental routine takes any less space! Why do you have so many toothbrushes?!”  
“One is for when my teeth are sensitive to the cold, one is softer for when I really wanna get into my gums, one is for normal wear and tear and this one shoots out water for flossing, like this.” Polly pressed the button to demonstrate but instead ended up splashing the water all over mirror, which then sprayed back on her and Leslie.  
“Ohmigosh, I’m so sorry!”   
“Are you kidding me right now? My make-up isn’t waterproof!” Leslie screamed.  
Hence by the time they were finally ready and out the door at 9:20 they had missed most of breakfast too and had to share the last remaining muffin. They were still bickering about who got the larger half when they went to sign in with their RA.  
“Good to see you finally showed up. Since you missed the intro, the way this works is there are first is a several small, team-building type races—”  
“Yes! Don’t worry, I’ve got this shorty.” Leslie tapped Polly’s head.  
“Don’t call me shorty!” Polly batted her hand away.  
“Ladies,” the RA said with her eyebrow raised. “Do you want a clean record or not?”  
“Yes please, sorry.” Leslie and Polly both replied.   
“As I was saying, and depending on your place in each race you’ll get a different ingredient. And by the end you’ll have to put the all together and make some food that will be judged by a panel of fellow students. Any questions? Yes Polly?”  
“Can we be a part of the food-judging panel?” Polly inquired. “No? Ok, I thought I’d ask.”  
The first of the small races was the three legged race. Considering Leslie had a good seven inches on Polly it didn’t turn out great. Out of 12 teams, they placed twelfth and their “prize” was melted ice cream, which to Polly’s dismay, she was not allowed to eat…or drink.  
“That was your fault!” Leslie exclaimed.  
“Oh really? As if I have control over how tall I get to be? Maybe it’s yours for being so freakishly huge!”  
“I am not freakish!”  
“Ask the mirror!”  
“Girls! When I said you had to do the Roommates Recovery program I didn’t want you to recover your way into more fighting! Now get ready for the next race!” The RA tossed a potato sack at them.  
And, in case you’re wondering, that race didn’t go to well either. Their prize—more melted ice cream. Although each girl was steaming in her own right, they had the sense to keep quiet about it this time. That didn’t last for long. The next race was a tag team event composed of running 50 yards, spinning with a bat while counting 10 seconds, throwing a softball into a hoop, and running back and tagging one’s roommate. Leslie went first and due to her natural athletic prowess, she was actually in the lead.  
“Yeah, Leslie! You can do it!” Polly surprised herself by cheering for her roommate.  
And when Leslie came to tag Polly, Polly ran ahead and reached the fifty yard point before some teams had even finished their first lap. That’s how much of head start Leslie had given them. But then Polly kept spinning…and spinning…and spinning.  
“Why are you taking so long? I’ve already counted to 10!” Leslie shouted.  
“I’m only—on 7—Mississippi!” Polly yelled back while spinning.  
“Why are you counting with Mississippi’s?!”  
Polly who now felt thoroughly discombobulated replied, “How can you count seconds Mississippi-lessly? Have you not seen Friends?!”  
Polly’s counting Mississippi-fully had almost completely eliminated their lead. But finally they place 8th and no longer got melted ice cream as a prize. This time they got a fruit and nuts bar.  
“Seriously? Mississippi?” was all Leslie said before she stalked off.  
“I’m sorry!” Polly wailed back.   
The next event was trivia based with only 10 questions and whichever team buzzed in with the correct answer first would get that point.  
“First question: Who said the sun —”  
“COPERNICUS!” Polly shouted, a little too eagerly.  
Everyone stared at her. Leslie rolled her eyes and whispered, “Let them finish the que—”  
“That’s correct!”  
“Oh, well then…nice job shorty!” Leslie patted Polly’s head again but she wasn’t as bothered this time.  
“3.141592653589!” “Mus musculus!” “Diego Rivera.” “525, 600 minutes!” “Bartholomew Allen—aka the Flash; What? I watch TV…” Of the 10 questions Polly had gotten 6 points! No other team was even close.   
“Wow, color me impressed.” Leslie said as they were given the top prize for that event—Chocolate!  
“Alright, it’s the final event! Everyone must now use the ingredients they received to serve the judges panel. And yes, all of the ingredients must be used.” One of the other RA’s said through a megaphone.   
Polly and Leslie put their “prizes” on the table—two bowls of melted ice cream, a fruit and nuts bar, and chocolate.   
Leslie asked, “Any ideas? The ice cream is more like water cream at this point…It looks gross and sad.”   
“I could always ‘accidentally’ spill it into my mouth…?” Polly suggested.  
“Lol, but then we’d be left with one fruit and nut bar and chocolate—that won’t be enough to feed the panel…” Leslie replied while breaking off some parts from the bar and forming a sad face in the ice cream.  
Polly thought for a moment. “Leslie that’s it! What if we make a smoothie? We can crush the bar into small pieces like you’re doing and mix it into the ice cream and top it off with chocolate!”  
“But we don’t have a blender…”  
“Hmm… Then we’ll pull a Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.”  
“We’re going to go with the headmaster to a cave in the middle of a sea that’s guarded by tormented souls to retrieve a locket of the Dark Lord that’s actually just a replica?”  
“Uhhh…that’s not exactly what I had in mind. I was thinking more along the lines of extracting the flavors by squishing the fruits and nuts between two knives—that way there won’t be any funky bits in the ice cream. And then we could scrape off chocolate to add flakes.”  
“Oh, that works too. I’ll start dividing up the fruits and nuts equally and you can start on the chocolate flakes.” Leslie said as she started breaking off the bar into three parts.   
“17 seconds remaining!” went the announcement and the girls frantically finished adding the flakes to their smoothies.   
“5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and step away from your tables everyone! Your work will now be judged by the RA’s.”   
The girls stepped back to admire their handiwork and look around. They hadn’t had a chance to taste anything and hoped, at the least, that no one would throw up. Looking at other teams’ dishes, they saw a variety from what looked like a PB&J sandwich to an elaborate meal of pasta with sauce, all of whom had better presentation as the girls’ smoothies had been poured into the staple of college fluid retention—Solo cups. But by now some geese had also flocked their way to the quad. There was a lake not too far from the quad and the geese had made a habit of coming here for a mid-day snack. And since these were college-bound geese, they had also made a habit of invading known sources of food—like college kids holding trays or said Solo cups.   
The geese started attacking. First to fall were the PB&J sandwiches. The kid with those basically just ripped one of the sandwiches and started throwing bits everywhere like a sprinkler. One of them landed square in one of Leslie and Polly’s cups. The bit of bread bobbed up and down, up and down.  
“Nooo!” Polly yelled.  
“Squaaack.” A bird turned its head and looked at their table and then “SQUAAAAACK!”   
“No! Shoo you ugly duckling!” Leslie screamed taking an apron and flailing it at the goose.  
“Go away!” Polly tried to throw water at the goose—now geese because the goose had recruited a fellow feathered fiend. She threw the water in arcs to cover a greater amount of area.  
“Leslie hand me another cup!” Polly threw and arced the liquid all the way around to the judges’ faces, who now stood with alarmed countenances splattered not with water but with one of the smoothies.  
“Oops…I think I may have given you the wrong cup.” Leslie said with her eyes wide open.  
“Ya think?” One of the judges replied.  
“But that shade of white really complements your hair…” Polly laughed nervously.  
“She’s right, John, it does actually.” Their RA said to diffuse the tension. “And you know what girls, although your presentation could have used a little work, I think you pulled off something wonderful. Good job. Your records are clean.” She reached out to shake their hands but both girls went in for a hug, ignoring the smoothie that smeared all over their clothes.  
“Thanks so much!” Both Leslie and Polly exclaimed. Just then the geese flew over them, dropping some you know what on both of their heads.  
By the time they had both alternated showering multiple times to get the bird poop out of their hairs, Polly had come up with a compromise for their original dilemma—she had some room under her bed and offered to let Leslie keep the volleyballs there. And the next day, she went to her roommate’s game and cheered her lungs out.  
The rest of the semester went rather peacefully for Polly, aside from several averted chemistry lab disasters and “negative 2” hours of free time. In between her classes and activities, she didn’t get much opportunity to swing by the Wymore lab. In fact, this would be her first time seeing all the members since the summer. That’s why she was really looking forward to end of semester celebration during which Radiya was also defending her thesis—even Daisy was coming back! Polly had never been to a thesis defense before so she dressed to a “T,” well at least she thought she did in her mind until Claire said,  
“Why on earth are you dressed as a knight?”  
“Because a dragon seemed too to the point and I so am not a damsel in distress.” Polly replied without missing a beat.  
“Yeah, because you’re more the damsel of distress.” A familiar voice said from behind them.  
“Max!” Both shouted.  
“And OMG dude that’s—” Polly said in mock anger while fake smacking him.  
Max completed, “Totes rude. I know. Wow, I can’t believe what I’m about to say but I think I actually missed that—Not the hitting, in case you needed clarification. I definitely do not miss that.” He rubbed his arm at the spot where he was hit for emphasis.  
“Aww.” Polly replied.  
Claire sighed, “We missed you too Max…So, how’s your new lab?”  
“Yeah, about that mister—What gives with the abrupt departure?” Polly inquired forcefully but then quieted down after a look from Claire. “Actually, I’m going to get some snacks.”  
“Umm, it’s fine, I guess. I wouldn’t call it my new lab though; it’s just a rotation.” he said.  
“So there’s still hope that you’ll come back to the Wymore lab?” Claire asked.  
Max smiled a small smile then said, “There’s always hope…Speaking of, how are things going with your boyfr—Nate?”  
“They’re fine. We’re…fine.”   
“Ok, good.”  
Claire continued, “How about you, then? Have you found…are you seeing anyone?”  
Max paused before replying, “Yeah, actually I am. Her name is Emma and she’s a tech in the Schumacher lab.”  
“Did you just say the Schumacher lab?” Copernicus intervened.  
“Hey Copernicus. How are you dude?” Max reached out for a fist bump that Copernicus ignored.  
“They are our enemies. If you are engaging in any form of intimate relationship with this member of our enemy lab—”  
Max looked suddenly uncomfortable, “I’m not and that was totally over the—”  
Copernicus continued “Then you are also one with the enemy and my can of silly string has your name on it.”  
“Wait, if it has my name on it then wouldn’t it become my can of silly string?” Max asked changing topics.  
“What? No, that… it’s still my can.”  
“Then shouldn’t it have your name on it?”   
“Yeah, it does, in permanent marker covered with clear nail polish so no one can remove it.” Copernicus scoffed.  
“So if it does have your name on wouldn’t the silly string also be targeted for you?”  
“What? No! It doesn’t…why would—”  
“Oh hey Copernicus!” Polly returned with a plate full of mini pastries. “Actually dude, I have to thank you. Because of you my roommate problem was solved.”  
“What do you mean?” Copernicus asked, intrigued.  
“Well, you see, my roomie and I used to be at each other’s throats but then we were forced to go to a ‘Roommate Recovery’ weekend thing and during one of the events you came up!” Polly answered.  
“I ‘came up?’” Copernicus cocked his eyebrow. “What do you mean I ‘came up?’ Are you implying that I somehow traversed the space time continuum? But then why wouldn’t I come to see myself and congratulate me on solving inter-dimensional travel?” Copernicus asked more to himself before continuing, “Wait! Of course I wouldn’t! If I existed at the same time as an alternate dimension version of me it could cause a rip between my dimension and his—I’m a genius. But wait!” Now he turned back to Polly, “Now that I know of the existence of time travel this alters the temporal field in ways no one can predict! Polly why would you tell me something like this! A wormhole could open above us at any moment! Is that what you want? I need to prepare at once! Wormhole! Aah!” He yelled as he ran out the door.  
The three stared after him for a moment.  
“Maybe I should go after him and tell him that’s not what I meant?” Polly offered.  
“No…I think it’s for the best.” Claire replied.  
“Yup, definitely. And also, ‘Roommate Recovery’ Program? That sounds like rehab for addicts. What did you do to get into that much trouble?” Max asked.  
“Uh, nothing. I’m sterling, just like this knight.” Polly pointed to her costume. “Which reminds me, why aren’t you guys dressed up for the defense like I am?”  
“You wanna tell her, or shall I?” Max asked Claire while failing to stifle a laugh.   
“I’ll do it. Because, Polly, a thesis defense is when the person, in this case Radiya, defends to the committee of professors that the topic they spent researching for the past two or more years was worthwhile.” Claire answered.  
Polly dropped the shield she was holding. “So what you’re saying is this get-up is completely unnecessary.”  
Claire just gave a small smile in response.   
Polly was about to reply Dr. Wymore started blowing on the microphone. “Ok everyone, ladies and gentlemen and…a knight? Oh, it’s you Polly.” He said as Polly gave him a wave. “I’m very proud to introduce one of my lab members who is today defending her Master’s thesis, Radiya.” The room, which was filled with more than 50 people including professors and students clapped.  
Radiya came in and looked slightly nervous.  
“Woo! You can do it girl!” Polly yelled. “Yeah!” The other Wymore lab members cheered.   
Radiya smiled and confidentially delivered her forty-five minute long presentation.  
“YAASSSSS QUEEEEEN!” Polly clapped and shouted when she finished.  
Radiya posed to the audience, “I’d be happy to take any questions. Yes, Dr. Tess?”   
“Uh, yes, Ms. Radiya, you gave an excellent talk on what would have been an original topic, however, have you gotten a chance to read the issue of Genetics that came out yesterday?” Dr. Tess asked.  
“Umm, no, I’m sorry, I did not.” Radiya replied.  
“Because,” Dr. Tess continued, “It would appear to be on a topic incredibly similar to yours—in fact the results are very much the same. See?” She pulled out her phone to show Radiya an article.   
Radiya’s face abruptly shifted from her initial content to confusion to horror as she handed the phone to Dr. Wymore. He too looked utterly shocked.  
After a moment he said, “We’ve been scooped.”  
Claire gasped.  
Polly didn’t know what “scooped” meant. She leaned over to ask Daisy, “I’m guessing this doesn’t have anything to do with scoops of ice cream?”  
Daisy looked just as dismayed, “No. It means that somebody’s published the same or very similar research and what we’ve done is, essentially, useless. And especially for Radiya, this means she needs to complete an entire thesis’ worth of work all over again.”  
“Wow…” Polly reflected. “I do not like this version of ‘scooped.’”


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6:  
“And then what happened?” Polly asked, so enraptured by her friend’s story that the chip she was holding, tortilla chip not potato because Polly thought there were only two allowable forms for potatoes-French fries and mashed, was precariously vacillating between a state of either entering her mouth or falling down.  
“We had no choice but to knock down the door, of course! Well, by ‘we’ I don’t mean me or Joe the paramedic, I mean the police officer, Eliza.” Matt continued.  
“Wait—I thought you said she was shorter than me? How could she kick down a door when I can barely open my window?”  
“You had to see her to believe it, Polly! I mean she had more muscle than me and Joey combined! And before you ask, no she does not have any male relatives within two decades of our ages.”  
“Poo—I would say that was very considerate of you to ask but I know you too well. You were asking for yourself too, weren’t you?”  
“Well, obvs. I only have so many years before I have to start to Botox.”  
“Ok, Matt seriously, we’ve talked about this—No Botox! You’re straight up injecting bacterial toxin into your veins…or your muscles or nerves or something. Doesn’t matter, point is—it’s gross and unhealthy!” Polly gesticulated with her hand vigorously shaking at Matt.  
“Yes because chips are the epitome of health.” He said while taking the bag away from her.  
Polly held up her hand then started counting. “Ok, these are multigrain! There’s wheat, there’s corn, there’s flax, there’s—”  
“Polly, Polly, Polly don’t you want me to finish the story before our next call?”  
“Ohmigosh, yes, sorry, please continue.” she motioned for him to go on.  
“We go in and there’s this giant of a man holed up in the corner yelling at us to stay away or he’ll shoot. And he’s holding something under a dishcloth so Eliza yells at me and Joey to duck and we do and she starts yelling at the man to calm down and he’s yelling back and then Joey starts yelling and I’m just watching them go back and forth blowing raspberries. Then Eliza tells him that we’re here to help him and we care and then he starts crying saying that’s the nicest thing anyone’s told him and drops his dishcloth. Turns out he was holding a banana! A banana!”  
“This sounds like a psych case—I thought you said it was an abdominal discomfort call?”  
“It was.” Matt deadpanned. “Anyhoo then we brought him in and checked his glucose—it was 30! No wonder the man was acting the way he was! So we gave him a bunch of glucose and he was back to being a perfect gentleman. It was great he even offered to—”  
BBBRRRRRIIIIIINNNNNGGGG!!!! The shrill alarm went off and the two jumped into action.  
“Potential Intoxication—wasted Wednesday’s already started!” Josephine, the senior and lead EMT called in that the crew was on their way.  
Polly got the duffle as Matt backed up the ambulance.  
“Full sirens?” he asked as Polly and Josephine got in the back.  
“Full sirens.” Josephine nodded.  
When they got to the dorm building from whence the call had originated, they were directed to a room on the female side.  
Josephine knocked on the door twice before entering saying, “EMS, we got a call about—Oh, I see. Wow.” She poked her head out and said to the other two, “You should double glove…and maybe wear the N-95 mask too.” She said as she donned another pair of gloves.  
Polly looked at Matt, who just shrugged, as they followed her instructions and then the smell hit.  
“Did something die in there?” Polly scrunched her nose at the horrid stench as she followed Matt into the room.  
“Yeah, any argument to decrease the drinking age to 18 just did.” he said.  
Inside, the room was covered in brown streaks that looked sort of shiny and…drippy with the highest density on a girl sitting on the bed covered in the same…feces.  
Josephine began, “Hi, I’m Josephine from EM—”  
“Aunt Josie I missed you so much! Did you get my unicorn?” The girl enveloped her in a hug and Matt looked like he was going to barf.  
“Well, I think it’s safe to say she’s not oriented times three…” Josephine said as she gently extricated herself from the girl’s grip.  
“And this is why I do not drink.” Polly followed them out of the room.  
When they got back from the case Josephine went straight to the shower as Matt and Polly sanitized the rig.  
“I feel like you were telling me about something before we left…” Polly tried to think back to a time before her mind was scarred with images of a poop smeared room.  
“I don’t remember…was it about when I was almost arrested?” Matt asked.  
“What?”  
“Yeah so my dogs ran into the street and I was just coming out of the shower so I still had my towel wrapped around so I couldn’t run out after them as fast as I wanted to and this car was coming straight for them and I was yelling at the lady to stop but she had headphones in and wasn’t listening so I grabbed the only thing I had and started waving it and she finally stopped before she hit my babies but then she called 911 claiming ‘indecent exposure’ or some nonsense. Obvs I told the officer everything and he let me off. So it’s all good now.”  
“Wow, and all this happened over just a semester?”  
“Almost two semesters Polly! It was just Spring Break you know…”  
Polly defended. “Looking at the weather you wouldn’t know! I never understand why they call it Spring Break when it’s still clearly winter!”  
“Yeah yeah, tell me about you chica. What’s happened since…since…whenever our last shift together was?”  
“Well, I’ve had to fake how many credits I’m taking so they’ll let me into grad classes…Well not really I’m only sort of faking because I sign up for 14 credits online but then I do another 10 on the paper form.”  
“So you’re lying to take more classes? Like what?”  
“Ethics.”  
“Okaayyy, besides classes what else have you been up to?”  
“Not much since I’m overloading and Nicole and Jenna both went on study abroad…had some roommate drama earlier but that cleared up, thank goodness. In fact we even spend three hours a week bonding over TV, Vamping and Shielding and Flashing.”  
“Oh my…you know that sounded a little more than weird, right? Especially the last bit.”  
“Flashing? Oh get your mind of the gutter! I obviously mean watching The Flash! I’ve also started spending a lot more time doing research. Speaking of which, when you hear ‘scooped,’ what do you think of?”  
“Ice cream sundae—or better yet Froyo! Or watermelon. Or—”  
“Yeah Ok, but the point is food right? So positive association? But not in science. Apparently in science ‘scooped’ means some conniving sneak published your stuff under their name.”  
“What? Why science why? Why must you contaminate a beautiful word like ‘scoop?’ WHY?”  
“I appreciate the sentiment, always, but you can tone it down a notch. Anyways someone scooped the master student’s research so I’m pitching in along with other members to help her finish off a whole new project in time to graduate before summer. And I think we can do it!”  
“Aww, that’s nice of you Boo.”  
“Thanksies.”  
“And how’s your fam doing?”  
“They’re good. My brother, the 14 year old, not the 5 year old, was trying to get his voice to change so he tried doing vocal exercises all winter break to no avail. But other than that, no change. How about yours?”  
Matt began, “Well—”  
BBBRRRRRIIIIIINNNNNGGGG!!!! The alarm went off again just as Josephine came out in a new set of clothes.  
“If it’s poop again I’m sending one of you in this time.” she said as she called in.  
Well, it did involve poop—a boy came back from break having eaten fruits on his last day in Guatemala and Polly was to hold the sample of bloody diarrhea while they transported him from the university hospital to the main city hospital.  
By the time they had gotten back it was now well past 1AM and everyone was ready to hit the sack. Polly had started to fall asleep when—  
BBBRRRRRIIIIIINNNNNGGGG!!!! The shrill alarm went off again.  
“NOOOOOO! WHY GOD? WHY?” Polly yelled as she jumped out of bed. Now don’t get me wrong, Polly loved being an EMT, she really did. Some of her favorite people were fellow EMT’s and some of her favorite memories were while she “Earned Money Sleeping.” Well, not really because the EMS was totally volunteer-based but still…she just wasn’t the biggest fan of more than 60% of the cases involving alcohol.  
Josephine was already calling it in when she turned to them, “Another intox case…”  
Matt said, “Oh that’s right; I forgot it’s the Ides of March Celebration.”  
“Who are you? Shakespeare?” Polly asked as they got the rig ready.  
“Drunk student-o, drunk student-o, where fore art thou?” Matt replied as he backed up.  
“The frat house in the Duncan building.” Josephine answered.  
“Duncan? Why does that sound familiar?” Polly asked herself, aloud.  
“I hope you’re not thinking of Dunkin Donuts, Polly.” Josephine joked.  
Polly scoffed. “I am always thinking of Dunkin Donuts. But…that’s not why…Wait! That’s right, I heard Leslie talk about some mixer or something…and then I was reminded of the time I made an ice cream by mixing together Cool Whip and Tasty Kake donuts—it was delicious…”  
The call in and of itself was uneventful compared to the earlier ones: underage drinking freshman who was crying the entire time worried about losing her scholarship. Polly did run into Leslie though, who took a quick selfie with her before Polly had to head out. Thankfully there were no more calls for the night and Polly was able to get ready for her 8 AM Physical Chemistry Recitation.  
When she got back to her dorm after dinner, Leslie was just setting up for their Vampire Diaries bonding time. She had the popcorn and Polly got the Raisinets.  
“The ads always make it look like the CW photo shoots must me such a party…” Polly sighed.  
“Oh! Speaking of parties, here’s the pic I snapped of us last night…or early this morning.” Leslie said as she pulled out her phone and scrolled through her camera roll. “Ah, here it is!”  
“Aww, look at us. We look totes adorbs!”  
“I know, right?! Now shush! The show’s starting…”  
Polly went to the settings to brighten up the photo a bit before sending it to herself. But when she did that, something caught her eye. She zoomed in as much as she could and altered the contrast. In the upper left side of the photo was a guy with his back towards the camera, with one arm swung around a girl and the other arm with a tattoo—a flower shaped tattoo of words…  
“Wait a minute…” There had to be a ton of other people out there with tattoos like that…right?  
“Polly be quiet! Caroline just said something important…”  
But Polly couldn’t wait and muted the screen. “Hey!” Leslie protested before looking at her roomie’s face. “Wait, are you ok?”  
“Ok Leslie I know this is a long shot but you wouldn’t happen to know who that guy is, right?” Polly pointed out the guy.  
“Oh, yeah! I know him… he’s Alyssa’s bf, but I keep telling her to watch out ‘cuz he’s such a playah! What’s his name again? Tim? Jake?”  
“…Nate?” Polly offered hesitantly.  
“YES! Nate! Yeah, the soccer player…why? Did he do something to you? Imma smack him!” 

 

TO BE CONTINUED...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Technically I've posted most of this final chapter but not all because I've published this as a novella of the same title on Amazon Kindle and I'm not allowed to publish it in full elsewhere meanwhile... sorry :(


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